What is the single-engine small plane with the best range?

Best single engine small personal plane with greatest range?

Since you'll be doing your travelling over fairly low terrain, no
serious mountains, I'd say either a 150hp Lycoming O-320 equipped
Beech Musketeer (60 gallons fuel) or a 150hp Piper Cherokee 140 (50
gallons fuel). These two planes are both comfortable, and are flying
gas tanks.

In your price range of 40K, you can get a pretty decent Cherokee 140
with the long range tanks that will go 500 miles or so at 125 mph.
Whatever you get, make sure it has a good heater, and an engine
warming unit.

A used Mooney M20C can be had for a little more. Mooney's are known
for going long distances on little fuel, but it is stretching your
budget. A used Mooney M20C can be found for 40k but it will need work
and it has retractable gear so it will cost more to maintain. If you
want to go far, fast, Mooneys do the best.

Really any of the small 4 place (you will just about have to get 4
place to get the long range tanks) would work for you provided they
have the 50 gallon tanks.

You really don't say how much range you need... but with these planes
figure 10 gallons an hour, and about 120 mph, but you have to land
with about an hour of fuel in the tanks (for safety).


(Bob) wrote in message . com...
Hello,

I've been reading news on flying for quite a while and these seems to
be the most well-informed groups (the googles)writer on the net. I
would therefore like to have your personnal opinion on a question. I
live in Northern Quebec (Yes, I'm french speaking so forgive the
spelling mistakes) and practice as a lawyer in the Nordic region of
Quebec with native people (no road access), we always travel by plane
(Gruman G-1, dash-8 or twin otter) and, as everyone, I am limited to
the schedule of these companies. I would like to fly my own plane to
these community; I would be able to charge less to my client for
travelling, I would be able to use these portion of flying as tax
deductible (and parts of the plane expense) and that would give me the
possibility of mixing my career with flying. My town airport as a
10000 feet (yes almost two miles, it used to be military) airstrip and
we are located at 1016 feet ASL. The kind of places I would like to
go are Great-Whale (500 statute miles), Chisasibi (300 statute miles),
Kuujuaq(800 statute miles) and Puvirnituq (850 statute miles ), of
course I will be able to fuel between these objectives. My question
finally!

-From your personnal opinion what is the best small single-engine
plane for this kind of use?

-The number of seats is irrelevant, I don't intent to carry
passengers;
-the payload is irrelevant( except for fuel), I travel light;
-the speed is not a major item;
-I don't like taildagger, the crosswind can be strong up there;
-range is the major item, avgas or mogas is harder to get in the small
airport the northern community (You often have to buy the whole 45
gallons drum)so refuelling is very time-consuming;
-Price range would be less than 55,000 canadian $ (about 40,000 us$)

If you need more precision do not hesitate to contact me

Thank you very much for your collaboration,

Yours Truly

Bob

Province of Quebec, Canada

On 16-Feb-2004, (One's Too Many) wrote:

Best single engine small personal plane with greatest range?

Since you'll be doing your travelling over fairly low terrain, no
serious mountains, I'd say either a 150hp Lycoming O-320 equipped
Beech Musketeer (60 gallons fuel) or a 150hp Piper Cherokee 140 (50
gallons fuel). These two planes are both comfortable, and are flying
gas tanks.


Not even close. Both of these fine planes burn about 8 GPH to go at most
115 kts (and probably less). That comes out to 14.375 nm/gal. In the
Musketeer, with 60 gallons of fuel, absolute range is thus an impressive 862
nm.

BUT: an Arrow III or IV will burn about 9 GPH (at 65% power) and deliver 135
kts, or 15 nm/gal. With 72 gallons (usable) of fuel, absolute range is 1080
nm.

Because drag increases at about the cube of speed, the general expectation
is that slow airplanes with big fuel tanks (as in the Rutan Voyager) will
have the greatest range. But the drag reduction of retractable gear (and
the injected vs. carbureted engine) of the Arrow provides greater efficiency
than 150 HP fixed gear airplanes despite its substantially greater speed.

--
-Elliott Drucker

As it seems with all of General Aviation, the best bang for the buck
is not in the certified aircraft. I can't say that I'm intimate the the
make, but it seems like a long-eze could do the job nicely.

--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Hood River, OR

My M20C with a couple of speed mods gets 145 ktas at 8 gph. At 54
gal, that's 6.75 hours of flight time....1000+ no-wind nm. You'll
find that the 15 knots start adding up when flying into a
headwind....the comment about icing was a good one, need to ask
yourself potential of having to delay for a day. Another question is
how you will really like the 7 hour flights? That's a long time.
Technically the PA28 (they are nice planes too) should be more
resistant to ice with the fatter wing, but in practice they are both
low powered singles, so it really doesn't make much difference.


wrote in message .. .
Bob:

I think the only airplane even close to your price range that would provide
the desired flying range is a normally-aspirated (not turbo) Arrow III or
Arrow IV. (A newer Arrow would also work, but these are very much more
expensive). These Arrows have 72 US gallon (usable) tanks and burn under 9
GPH at 65% power while providing a TAS of around 135 kts. (More like 141
kts at 75% power, but the extra fuel burn reduces range.) Thus you get a
range of over 900 nm with VFR reserve, but you will be flying non-stop for
about 7 hours getting there. Take a relief bottle. I co-own an Arrow IV,
and I consider its outstanding range to be one of its best features.

Frank Stutzman wrote:
: As it seems with all of General Aviation, the best bang for the buck
: is not in the certified aircraft.

Sad, but true. With all the red tape and lawsuits, certified aircraft are a pain
in the *ss and stuck with 50 year old technology. That said, it seems like they actually
do hold up better and are more likely to just work when you get in to go somewhere.

-Cory

--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

wrote in message
...
Frank Stutzman wrote:
: As it seems with all of General Aviation, the best bang for the buck
: is not in the certified aircraft.

Sad, but true. With all the red tape and lawsuits, certified aircraft are
a pain
in the *ss and stuck with 50 year old technology. That said, it seems
like they actually
do hold up better and are more likely to just work when you get in to go
somewhere.

Maybe the Diamond DA-40 TDi. Not on the budget though.
But range is good.

http://www.diamond-air.at/en/products/DA40/facts.htm

1100nm with the big tanks, I guess at reasonable speed.
2.4 USG/hour at 89kts, 3.2 @ 110kts, 4.9 @ 132kts.
Jet-A so here in Europe it's about 1/3 the price of avgas.
Seriously cheap flying if you discount the purchase cost.
At 89 knots it has an endurance of 17 hours. 1513nm.

Paul

Doug wrote:

You really don't say how much range you need...

As I read it, he needs about 1900 statute miles plus reserves and something more
for wind. As I understand his post, one of his destinations is 850 miles away
and he would prefer to avoid having to refuel there.

George Patterson
A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you look forward to the trip.

Maybe the Diamond DA-40 TDi. Not on the budget though.
But range is good.

http://www.diamond-air.at/en/products/DA40/facts.htm

1100nm with the big tanks, I guess at reasonable speed.
2.4 USG/hour at 89kts, 3.2 @ 110kts, 4.9 @ 132kts.
Jet-A so here in Europe it's about 1/3 the price of avgas.
Seriously cheap flying if you discount the purchase cost.
At 89 knots it has an endurance of 17 hours. 1513nm.

Paul



I was actually thinking a qtr partnership in a Twin Star. Of course, an
older twin would be much less capital at the expense of operating costs and
more maintenance hassles. The thing is that after soloing, he will havea
much better perspective. Also, he will be able to talk to instructors and
pilots in the area.

I haven't looked at a map, but isn't he flying over sparcely inhabited
terrain with possible extreme cold temperatures? If he goes down, he could
be there a while. One of those new 408 mhz ELT's would likely be a
necessity.

Frank Stutzman wrote:

As it seems with all of General Aviation, the best bang for the buck
is not in the certified aircraft. I can't say that I'm intimate the the
make, but it seems like a long-eze could do the job nicely.


I was thinking of the same thing actually. But it really depends on what
he's doing.

For 40k he can get a nice Long-Ez, it has 1000nm+ range. 52 gal at 6gph
(o-235) at 150 knots is 8+ hours, or about 1000nm. If you want to go there
and back you build a spare tank for the back seat and hold over 100gal.
He's flying solo so there's a whole seat for storage, over top of the other
soft storage.

For that money I'm sure you could find a nice plane with an O-320 and boost
the speed up, but you'll pay for in range.

So all this is great, but what weather does he want to fly in? There's many
people why fly them IFR, I don't because that's not the reason I fly. They
don't do well in ice (ice gets into the hinges) and they don't like
lightening.

Is there gravel or grass involved? Home base isn't, but what about those
other airports?

But for the price? Hard to beat,

-Andrew

--
Andrew Stanley-Jones | "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
EE, LongEz N87KJ | -- Walt Disney